Bride by Command by Linda Winstead Jones Page B

heat of the kiss, the warmth he had sometimes roused just by smiling at her. Her gift of destruction was cold; Jahn was heat. She did not entirely understand, but she could not deny that he had a way of stopping the curse.
    “Warm me,” she commanded as she walked to the bed.
    His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “What’s this?”
    “I’m cold,” she said, not hesitating as she lay beside him on the bed. He had put the clean sheets over the mattress of this bed which had terrified her so. She knew now that there were much worse things in her world to be terrified of. “I’m cold to my very bones. Make me warm, please.”
    Almost grudgingly, Jahn wrapped his arms around her. She breathed deeply and rested her head against his shoulder. He ran one strong hand up and down her back in a comforting manner that made the ice in her heart melt away. “It is not a cold day, Ana,” he said softly. “What has you so chilled?”
    She could not tell him. She could never tell anyone! “I went for a walk and I got lost, and I was so afraid.”
    “You should’ve stayed here,” he said, “as I told you.”
    “Yes, yes, I know,” she admitted. “Men were following me.”
    Jahn’s body stiffened. “Truly?”
    “I think so,” she confessed, no longer certain that her imagination hadn’t been playing tricks on her.
    The chill she’d experienced on that horrible night she would never forget had been out of control and powerful and terrifying. The warmth Jahn roused was just the opposite. It calmed her. The heat was a slow and familiar and pleasant sensation. She snuggled close to his warm chest and listened to his steady and strong heartbeat. She clutched at his shirt with chilly hands. Yes, she was getting warmer, but she was not warm enough. She wanted more heat; she wanted the ice at her core gone, once and for all, and only he could chase it away.
    “Kiss me,” she said, lifting her head to bring her lips close to Jahn’s.
    The surprise in his blue eyes was genuine. “What?”
    Morgana smiled. “Kiss me. When you kiss me, I feel warm all over. I like that. I need it. My life is falling apart, and even though you are the cause of the turmoil, you are also the solution to my dilemma.”
    “What dilemma?”
    She did not want to explain, not now, not ever. “Just kiss me.”
    He did, tentatively at first, then with passion. It was the unexpected passion that fed her heat, the fervor that chased away her curse. This warmth was marvelous. She drank it in; she savored it.
    Jahn parted her lips with his and slipped the tip of his tongue into her mouth. It was as if a stream of fire whipped through her body, chasing away the last of the chill, the last of the fear. There was only warmth in this place, warmth and peace. She should tell him to stop now. He had done all that was necessary, after all. There was no longer any danger of her turning everything in her path to fragile crystal with a burst of cold she could not control.
    And yet, she was no longer entirely in control, she recognized that very well. She was out of control in an entirely new way, but there was no danger here. There was simply desire and warmth and a longing for something more.
    Jahn Devlyn was a husband she did not want. He had claimed her as if she were a horse up for auction, a lucky and convenient find. He did not know her; she did not know him. The life he offered was not what she’d dreamed of—it was more the stuff of nightmares. And yet, he had been the one to end the chill that was her curse. He was the one who had taken her from a home where she’d felt as if she were on the verge of being discovered as a monster. Would she trade the life of a pampered lady which was filled with terror and uncertainty for the simple life of a sentinel’s wife where there was always someone to take away the curse? Would she trade ice and death for heat and life?
    She loved Jahn’s kiss. It was heartfelt and filled with promise. There was such heat in his